Top 500 Hunter S. Thompson Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “It is entirely conceivable – given the known effects of Ibogaine – that Muskie’s brain was almost paralyzed by hallucinations at the time; that he looked out at that crowd and saw gila monsters instead of people, and that his mind snapped completely when he felt something large and apparently vicious clawing at his legs. We.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

252. “Never create anything, it will be misinterpreted, it will chain you and follow you for the rest of your life.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

253. “He had that rare weird electricity about him – that extremely wild and heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope of ever behaving normally.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

254. “Humphrey will go into a black neighborhood in Milwaukee and drench the streets with tears while deploring “the enduring tragedy” that life in Nixon’s America has visited on “these beautiful little children” – and then act hurt and dismayed when a reporter who covered his Florida campaign reminds him that “In Miami you were talking just a shade to the Left of George Wallace and somewhere to the Right of Mussolini.” Hubert.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

255. “There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

256. “Richard Nixon looks like a flaming liberal today, compared to a golem like George Bush. Indeed. Where is Richard Nixon now that we finally need him?”

— Hunter S. Thompson

257. “It was like falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool full of mermaids.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

258. “I hate pain, despite my ability to tolerate it beyond all known parameters, which is not necessarily a good thing.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

259. “Flying United, to me, is like crossing the Andes in a prison bus. There is no question in my mind that somebody like Pat Nixon personally approves every United stewardess. Nowhere in the Western world is there anything to equal the collection of self-righteous shrews who staff the “friendly skies of United.” I do everything possible to avoid that airline, often at considerable cost and personal inconvenience.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

260. “I believe the Republicans have never thought that democracy was anything but a tribal myth.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

261. “You took too much man, too much, too much.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

262. “I feel the same way about disco as I do about herpes.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

263. “They’re gonna make it look like suicide. I know how those bastards think.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

264. “Nixon was a crook, of course, but he was also a rabid football fan – and he knew the game, which still astounds me, but I have always had a soft spot for him because of it.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

265. “Those who fail to learn from the brutal stompings visited on them in the past are doomed to be brutally stomped in the future.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

266. “February is always a bad month for TV sports. Football is gone, basketball is plodding along in the annual midseason doldrums, and baseball is not even mentioned.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

267. “A little bit of this town goes a very long way.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

268. “I never claimed to be anything more than a nice guy and an athlete.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

269. “The wide receiver had a real taste for crime, and he indulged it with an erratic kind of vigor that made him an albatross for Madden and a natural soulmate for my old friend, Al Davis, who remains the ultimate Raider. They were serious people, and John Madden was definitely one of them, for good or ill. Living with the Oakland Raiders in those days was not much different than living with the Hell’s Angels. I.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

270. “Life should not be a journey to the grave...”

— Hunter S. Thompson

271. “Stay naked as much as possible, but do not impose your orgiastic will on others. Don’t have sex in the lobby – it’s usually awkward.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

272. “The person who doesn’t scatter the morning dew will not comb gray hairs.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

273. “The mind and body must be subjected to extreme stimulus, by means of drugs and music.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

274. “As your attorney I advise you to get the chiliburger. It’s a hamburger with chili on it.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

275. “I couldn’t imagine, and I don’t say this with any pride, but I really couldn’t imagine writing without a desperate deadline.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

276. “Not a wasted word. This has been a main point to my literary thinking all my life.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

277. “The trouble with Nixon is that he’s a serious politics junkie. He’s totally hooked and like any other junkie, he’s a bummer to have around, especially as President.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

278. “If Sunday is the Lord’s day, then Saturday belongs to the Devil. It is the only night of the week when he gives out Free passes to the Late show at the Too Much Fun Club.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

Featured in: Fun Quotes

279. “Crack is ruining the drug culture.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

280. “There was an awful suspicion in my mind that I’d finally gone over the hump, and the worst thing about it was that I didn’t feel tragic at all, but only weary, and sort of comfortably detached.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

281. “The highways are crowded with people who drive as if their sole purpose in getting behind the wheel is to avenge every wrong done them by man, beast or fate. The only thing that keeps them in line is their fear of death, jail and lawsuits.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

282. “Yes sir, I am a tortured man for all seasons, as they say, and I have powerful friends in high places. Birds sing where I walk, and children smile when they see me coming.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

283. “NOT EVERYBODY is comfortable with the idea that politics is a guilty addiction. But it is. They are addicts, and they are guilty and they do lie and cheat and steal – like all junkies. And when they get in a frenzy, they will sacrifice anything and anybody to feed their cruel and stupid habit, and there is no cure for it.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

284. “If you can’t make yourself understood by your friends, you’ll be in trouble when your enemies come for you.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

285. “I’m not trying to send you out “on the road” in search of Valhalla, but merely pointing out that it is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than that – no one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

286. “It was obvious that he was a man who marched through life to the rhythms of some drum I would never hear.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

287. “I have long admired Ron Whitehead. He is crazy as nine loons, and his poetry is a dazzling mix of folk wisdom and pure mathematics.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

288. “Wake up and ponder the future.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

289. “The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

290. “All we have to do is get out and vote, while it’s still legal, and we will wash those crooked warmongers out of the White House.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

291. “As your attorney, I advise you to tell me where you put the goddamn mescaline.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

292. “It drops us into a vigorous current, a constant state of misguided control. The doomed generation takes a final step forward, ignoring all the signs that state the obvious, and leaps into a trip no drug known to man could ever encompass.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

293. “Not everybody is comfortable with the idea that politics is a guilty addiction. But it is.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

294. “There was no time for scholarly details, and, besides, I have always believed that a man can fairly be judged by the standards and taste of his choices in matters of high-level plagiarism.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

295. “A sense of humor is the main measure of sanity.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

296. “I have never believed much in luck, and my sense of humor has tended to walk on the dark side.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

297. “I was so far beyond simple fatigue that I was beginning to feel nicely adjusted to the idea of permanent hysteria.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

298. “At age 22 I set what I insist is an all-time record for distance hitchhiking in Bermuda shorts: 3,700 miles in three weeks.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

299. “Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

300. “I keep my mouth shut now. I’ve turned into a professional coward.”

— Hunter S. Thompson